When asked about the 2011 Russellville High School track team, coach Charlie Goodman said there are plenty of positives and negatives.

The Cyclones and Lady Cyclones will both be strongest in the distance events, which is not surprising after the boys won the Class 6A state cross country title and the girls finished fifth.

RHS has a couple of talented pole-vaulters in Braden Henderson, who set a sophomore school record in 2010, along with Ben Jordan. The girls are hoping to have the services of Jaimie Long and will have the services of a ninth-grade phenom.

"Ashtyn Purtle," Goodman said. "Boy, she's athletic. But she's a ninth-grader right now. She'll run Saturday, and she's going to do several things for us. I think she's going to run the hurdles for us; she's going to high jump for us, and I think she'll run a leg if we have a short relay. She's very athletic. I'm looking forward to seeing that because she's just a very conscientious girl that doesn't want to lose."

Goodman said several ninth-graders might see some high school action this year, another positive from moving into Class 6A. Class 7A doesn't allow ninth-graders to participate in high school athletics. But the coach added the junior high kids will participate in the junior high track season, then move up and help them late in the high school season.

"They'll jump for us in the state indoor Saturday, then we'll let them be junior high kids through the junior season," Goodman said. "Then if they can help us at the high school level, they will."

Goodman isn't too sure about what he's got in the throwing events, but thinks they'll be competitive.

"We've been working out for six weeks throwing the shotput, and I've got some guys in the high 40s, but we'd like to have them in the mid 50s," he said. "We'll just have to keep working on them."

Russellville's weakness this season will be in the sprinting events, Goodman said. With several runners not participating for one reason or another, the speed events will be the biggest difficulty for the Cyclones and Lady Cyclones.

"With the girls, right now we're really in good shape in distance running. That's about it," he said. "We just don't have the sprinters we'd like to have out."

The biggest negative for the team this season is the lack of facilities. After a dispute about the incline of the original pole-vault approach just inside the track on the north side of the turf, school officials, against Goodman's recommendation, decided to move it in front of Cyclone Hill. The problem, however, is that the pole vault, high jump, long jump and triple jump areas are not complete. Not only does this jeopardize the school's ability to host this season's meets, Goodman said, it also leaves the team with nowhere to practice.

"Those aren't finished -they're unusable," he said. "We're closing in on March and we still don't have any place to pole vault, long jump, triple jump or high jump. Everybody got excited that we have an Astroturf field, but there wasn't a very good plan in place for moving the four event areas we have for track. So that got put onto the back-burner until December when they first started doing anything on this. We asked them and asked them and asked them and asked them, but no one was in a hurry."

He said despite his many arguments to the school board and athletic department, he feels like the track program was ignored in the process of installing the field.

"My kids, I think, were actually overlooked," he continued. "Everybody got excited we got a turf for football and soccer, and we're in our season right now and we have no place to practice those four field events. Those events are critical for a track team. It's probably not going to be done until about mid-March or April. They could have been working on it since August. Actually, they could have been done in August.